I got married, I don't hate music anymore
Friday, June 12, 2026
The cycle of feeling love and hate towards music is so new to me. For the past decade, I saw music as something largely outside of what it is in and of itself. Instead, I saw it as a means for me to get what I wanted; career, success, attention. Then, a year ago I started tackling my desire for those things at their root causes, and for a while, it was awesome. I got into music outside of the context of releaseing music, outside of the context of thinking about what people thought about what I've made, outside of thinking about how people will consume it and how to get them to do that. I was creative and inspired in a new way. I wrote most of an album. But then, I got to the hard part. Finishing the album. I had demos, I had everything written, I was months away from my wedding, I had new mental illnesses I had never experienced, I found a love for writing, I had no motivation to do things that I wasn't interested in.
I realized that I would rather die than try to work within the music industry and being around people who were interested in finding success within it started to really upset me. I was making things for ME now, I didn't really care about anything else and I felt like people would misunderstand me when I expressed that. But when making stuff for myself it turns out there was no reason to make myself do it when I didn't want to. And I never wanted to. I wanted to cry and not eat and stare off into the distance and feel guilty for not being helpful enough with wedding planning and write books and read books. But now that the stress is less active, I like music again. I don't feel the guilt or implications of every song I've made. I just feel like I've written some really pretty, unique and touching tracks and I think it would be cool to share them. So I'm excited!
I might delete this eventually, it does feel pretty personal but! It was good for me to externalize it.
also here is an experiment I made using some string arrengments from my fav song on the album
Things to do when I'm not singing
Wednesday, April 8th, 2026
I have been putting off finishing this album. All that's left is recording final vocals. I have a past of recording songs, releasing them, becoming dissapointed by the vocal (always the vocal) and redoing them. I never want to do that again. At first it was because I could NOT sing well. I didn't start singing until I was 22 and I am the furtherest thing from natural. Then just as I began to get a grasp on how to use my voice, I transitioned. I needed to relearn how to use my voice as a woman with so little to draw from. The amount of times I've pushed myself too high trying to sing along to my favorite songwriters and gotten frusturated is really more than I can count. But I've come to a place where with my station in life and my confidence in my artisty I've embraced what I can do as a transwoman, where my voice sits best in my body, how to become the song and not think about singing.
I've been sending as much time as I can really zeroing in on how I want to sound on this album but there is also a limit to how much I can use my voice each day before becoming tuckered out so I have been looking for other things to fill my time (NOT writing new songs). I've taken up creating this website, working on a game with my wife, and now writing as well. I like it. I like how concentrated it is, there aren't a thousand tiny variables, melody, timbre, mix, lyrics, drums, there's just words.
I really just wanted to (maybe still want to) write lesbian smut because that is all I read but everytime I sit down to write it gets dark in a literary fiction way. Thats cool that's fine, but for whatever reason the fact that literary fiction is held in such regard and the romance I read isn't taken seriously puts me off. I already care too much about what people think about my music, I don't need another art form where the genre I picked lends its self to critical enjoyers. I think it's a me thing, I should ignore more of what people think. The other day, I went to a skin care shop with my wife and left the house without glasses for the first time ever, everything so blurry I can't make out a computer screen in front of me without them, and it was the freest I've felt in over a decade. I want that from what I create. And sometimes when I'm lucky I can find that! I feel like I did on this album. I'm rambling...
what I'm trying to say is, I'm gonna add a tab to share some of my stories as I finish them (and add a pokopia corner to my site)!
I love everything I used to love, I love everything I used to hate.
Saturday, March 14th, 2026
For the first time I can remember I have been pulling influence from nostalgia, not really at events or memories of the past, but the idea of things that gave me a really strong reaction as a child. How badass and radical I thought Shadow the hedgehog was. How I used to think the least cool music ever made is adult contemporary (I would and still do call it "orthodontist office music"). I've been creating music with me as a weird, depressed, lonely 8 year old in mind. Writing songs about giant wolves chasing me through the woods everynight, or making orthodontist office music (I have accepted that I will never make cool music, it is not the goal).
I wasn't gonna share any music with this post but tbh but I'd feel like a tease (I am a tease...) referencing such specific emotions then not sharing my take on them so here is a track that is ONE of those two and it will be super obvious which
Is this enough to add the Game Dev Tag?
Sunday, Febuary 28th, 2026
Okay, I talked about getting into scoring games lately but my wife (who I have worked with sosososo much creatively until last year when we put our huge project on hiatus) asked if I wanted to work on a game together! I. am. so. pumped.
After having multiple ideas that got way too large in scope for a first game we had an idea for a very small starting game. I don't have any experience with code or dev at all other than the VERY small amount I've learned from Neocities since Feb 1 of this year but RPG maker was on sale and I've been needing a project to put my time into to calm myself down and in the past 24hr I've been learning so much! Here's a lil video of what I made just today using stock assets. I just wanted to experiment with some basic mechanics like getting items, skill checks based on dice rolls, accumulating points that effect events, etc! I'm really proud of myself for learning so much so quick. Like yeah, this game looks horrible but that is NOT THE POINT!!! I think I worked out all the mechanics we will need to make a game ! [also how can I make a greated than 3 sign in html so I can make hearts again!!!]
Girls Kissing Girls
Monday, Febuary 23th, 2026
I've been thinking about the context of my voice as a trans woman in my music, and by voice I mean the actual sound coming out of my mouth not like, how I convey who I am (although they're so linked its basically useless to separate them) specifically in relationship to passing. Not like in context of wanting to pass or not but like how certain lyrics being said by a transwoman can change the meaning.
A lot of my songs are basically written as lesbian romance novels in the shape of a song and usually the narrator is a cis woman who I end up writing as. In a few new songs I've been writing these cis girls say things that I don't think they "should" say. The full version of this song has some words that the main character says in a fit of closeted rage that I don't think most cis women should say (my shitty hs gf who called me one when we broke up would beg to differ but...). I guess what I'm sorta saying is, I as a trans girl can say f*ggot bc I've been called one for most of my life and the cis girl in this song shouldn't say it but does. and it's funny bc most of my life as a trans singer I have put so much focus on passing and with this one it changes the context in some ways.
Another example in the clip I shared of this song is "I've never been so goddamn wet" which is just fun to sing as a t girl if im being totally honest...
I got distracted...
Monday, Febuary 16th, 2026
I began playing Animal Crossing again in my relaxation time and it ended weirdly scratches the same creative customization itch that working on this site does so I kinda fell off. That said, I have been making my island SOO cute (will post pictures once I get my final bridges moved) and it does help me to relax during a time when I've really been struggling to do so.
My wife and I have played Animal Crossing together a lot over the years, either playing next to each other in 2020 or starting new towns in the Game Cube game or City Folk. On second date ever they brought their DS to my house and I had just started New Leaf and they gave me like 500,000 bells to try and impress me, it worked, I was rly impressed. We've always had really diff style of designing tho, exp pretransition for me. I would tend to make modern and practical spaces and they would make weird sereal rooms. Since I've been playing this time I have found myself making rooms more like hers and this is my very favorite and I think if I could live in any room I've made in this game it would be this one.
Does this song make you want to kiss the bird Goddess?
Wednesday, Febuary 6th, 2026
Last month I was part of a game jam as a composer (my first game jam!) and I made a lot of tracks I'm really proud of. I have never been part of a game jam before but really wanted to do one but was like? scared? I didn't know how to find one or find a team? I ended up doing some research and finding the page for open games on itch.io! I joined the team for Last Call's Dance in a narrative game jam and it was v fun. I've been getting out of my comfort zone of purely electronic music more lately and their soundscape of orchestral and organic sounds was a great way to explore that more for me!
The team has been continuing to work on the game after the jam and I was asked to compose another song for THE BIRD GODDESS. I was so pumped when I saw her design:0 I wrote this modifying a track I had composed for a different project that ended up going unused bc it sounded too romantic so it seemed perfect for this beautiful bird goddess
The demo for Last Call's Dance is playbale!
Making Organic Textres Feel Weird
Wednesday, Febuary 4th, 2026
I wrote this song after beating Signalis and feeling so moved by the love story but being unable to talk to my wife about it bc she was gonna play it next and I didn't wanna spoil it. I ended up writing the chords and lyrics super quick but when I tried to produce it it always felt like "blah blah blah we're doing the song" and stale. I started to do a lot of tests in organic textures that I could then manipulate to feel a little uncanny. I figured out if I played the chords in strange rolled ways with ornimentation then sliced that onto a drum pad with looping I could create this out of time mutated piano sound I really love. I then also ended up pitching it down a minor third but thats more so bc the key was too high for my Trans Voice. maybe I'll share a snippit with vocals soon.
Welcome to my site :)
Tuesday, Febuary 3rd, 2026
I just began learning to code on Febuary 1st and this is my first project! I just built this home page where I someday would like to share some journal-y thoughts, works in progress, and general life updates! So far I created this page using grids and have ideas for each section. I plan on taking on one section at a time, getting them funtional, and then eventually making them pretty! Once I get that done I wanna start adding more pages, perhaps dedicated spaces for diff sections? whos to say. Right now I'm setting up a video player for a music video I made last fall and a lil update section :) I'm so excited to work on this project bc I HATE what social media has become but I love writing lil updates and sharing my work! I'll try to set up a little chat window soon so that ppl can say hi or give me pointers!